ISM Signpost #5
SIGNPOST is the monthly executive summary of the
internet search marketing industry.
02.06 ISSUE 5
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*** Adult infringement
*** The butler’s retirement
*** The ultimate searching machine?
*** Rewarding search
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+++ Adult infringement +++
Perfect 10 wins copyright battle against Google
The future of image search was jolted when Perfect 10, an adult entertainment site, proved that Google infringed its copyrights by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs.
Although Google will be appealing the case, the US district judge ordered that both sides craft an injunction that protects Perfect 10’s copyright, without restricting Google’s right to display and catalogue images. Google is hoping that the injunction will only affect Perfect 10 pictures and not the vast majority of its image searches.
The adult entertainment company publishes a magazine and web site that sells access to thousands of photos of naked women. The company sued Google and Amazon, which runs the A9 search engine but the cases were consolidated.
At issue, is the thumbnail images displayed in response to a search request. When a user clicks on a thumbnail, the page splits into two frames. The top of the page displays the thumbnail image and a warning that it “may be scaled down and subject to copyright.” That frame is hosted on computers owned by Google.
The lower part of the page is hosted by the web site that displays the full-size image. Perfect 10 says that this is a violation of its copyright, and that the display of the larger image, which is hosted by a third-party web site, constitutes a secondary copyright infringement on the part of Google.
Observers say Google lost the case for two reasons. First, Google monetises image search with AdSense from sites that have pirated the images from Perfect 10. Second, Google’s image mobile search is similar to a subscription service offered by Perfect 10, which enables users to download a downsized image to their phone.
While the judge agreed that Perfect 10 had assembled enough evidence for copyright infringement, he was not convinced by its case for secondary infringement at trial.
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+++ The butler’s retirement +++
Jeeves hangs up his hat as ask.com relaunches
Ask.com, the search engine, has been relaunched without its butler Jeeves. This move is hoped to increase the popularity of the search engine so that it’s used for general search enquiries and not just questions.
The rebrand will be supported by a multimillion-pound ad campaign, portraying Ask as a user-friendly search engine that makes navigating the internet faster and easier.
Ask is the fifth-largest search engine, after Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Ask had a market share of 5.5% in December including the traffic at its affiliated sites — Excite, iWon and MyWay — according to Neilsen/NetRatings.
It will also free the site from restrictions on adult content, which were part of the copyright agreement with the estate of P.G. Wodehouse, the British author who wrote the Jeeves and Wooster stories featuring the butler.
IAC has been making changes in the search engine since it acquired the site for £1.06 billion, last summer. It has reduced the number of sponsored links to three from 10 and simplified the process of searching for images.
The new Ask home page will feature tools with links that direct the user to specialised pages to search within pictures, encyclopaedias and maps with driving and walking directions.
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+++ The ultimate searching machine? +++
BMW’s German web pages dropped by Google
The German-language web pages of BMW, the car manufacturer, and Ricoh, the office equipment maker, were blacklisted by Google for using ‘improper’ techniques to boost their ranking in the search engine listings.
A blogger, called Matt Cutts, who is head of the webspam group at Google, wrote that BMW had written ‘gebrauchtwagen’ – German for used cars – 42 times on its ‘doorway’ page to appeal to the Google software probes, while visitors were directed to its home page.
A doorway page is full of keywords for search engine optimisation and only displayed to the search bot. However, Google’s quality guidelines warn: “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.
Both BMW.de and Ricoh.de removed their doorway pages immediately and were reinstalled on Google’s index. Cutts warned that Google is “expanding its efforts on webspam in non-English languages this year.”
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+++ Rewarding search +++
Search engines use loyalty and promotion programmes to lure users
As competition in search heats up, the business is looking to the newspaper world for inspiration in attracting users. Competing search engines are beginning to offer direct incentives to searchers, in a similar way that newspapers and magazines give away free DVDs and gifts to their readers.
Microsoft has announced a three-month incentive promotion with hundreds of thousands of pounds in prizes to persuade searchers to visit www.msnsearchandwin.com. Similarly, Yahoo! has sent an email to users asking them what sort of prizes and gifts would convince them to switch to the Yahoo! search engine.
There are a number of other search engines who already offer rewards to their customers. Los Angeles-based GoodSearch.com rewards repeat users by donating a small amount to a charity of the user’s choice every time a search is conducted on its Yahoo-based search engine. Amazon.com offers regular users of its A9 search engine a 1.57% discount on most Amazon.com purchases. Meanwhile, Blingo.com, powered by Google, gives away prizes like cinema tickets and iPods to lucky users occasionally.
PreFound.com, a search engine that restricts searching to collections of pages its users have tagged is beginning to incentivise users who regularly save helpful links to the site. These informed users will be paid the Google AdSense revenue generated from the ads on their saved pages.
The idea of sharing ad revenue with searchers has also been mooted by Bill Gates. The scramble by search engines to knock the dominance of Google and its successful pay-per-click model, suggests that the game’s not over until the fat lady sings. Or rather, not over until the fat lady wins her prize…
SIGNPOST is published monthly by Internet Search Management Ltd.
The opinions expressed are those of the Editor and not necessarily those of
Internet Search Management Ltd.
All material Copyright 2006 Internet Search Management Ltd. All rights reserved.
ENDS
